What Is The Ownership Structure Like For Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company S.A. (ATH:EYDAP)?

If you want to know who really controls Athens Water Supply and Sewerage Company S.A. (ATH:EYDAP), then you'll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership.

With a market capitalization of €753m, Athens Water Supply and Sewerage is a decent size, so it is probably on the radar of institutional investors. Our analysis of the ownership of the company, below, shows that institutions own shares in the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Athens Water Supply and Sewerage.

Check out our latest analysis for Athens Water Supply and Sewerage

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Athens Water Supply and Sewerage?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

Athens Water Supply and Sewerage already has institutions on the share registry. Indeed, they own a respectable stake in the company. This implies the analysts working for those institutions have looked at the stock and they like it. But just like anyone else, they could be wrong. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. It's therefore worth looking at Athens Water Supply and Sewerage's earnings history below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

It would appear that 10.0% of Athens Water Supply and Sewerage shares are controlled by hedge funds. That catches my attention because hedge funds sometimes try to influence management, or bring about changes that will create near term value for shareholders. Our data shows that Hellenic Corporation of Assets & Participations S.A. is the largest shareholder with 50% of shares outstanding. With such a huge stake in the ownership, we infer that they have significant control of the future of the company. With 11% and 10.0% of the shares outstanding respectively, Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund S.A. and Paulson & Co. Inc. are the second and third largest shareholders.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. As far I can tell there isn't analyst coverage of the company, so it is probably flying under the radar.

Insider Ownership Of Athens Water Supply and Sewerage

While the precise definition of an insider can be subjective, almost everyone considers board members to be insiders. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

We note our data does not show any board members holding shares, personally. It is unusual not to have at least some personal holdings by board members, so our data might be flawed. A good next step would be to check how much the CEO is paid.

General Public Ownership

With a 19% ownership, the general public have some degree of sway over Athens Water Supply and Sewerage. While this size of ownership may not be enough to sway a policy decision in their favour, they can still make a collective impact on company policies.

Private Company Ownership

Our data indicates that Private Companies hold 50%, of the company's shares. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Athens Water Supply and Sewerage you should be aware of.

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

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